Washington, D.C. When on June 4 President Obama visits Egypt and addresses Muslims worldwide, he will have a much-needed opportunity to explain to them again that Americans are not their enemies. He stated this first on January 27 when he talked about growing up in Indonesia, Islam's most populous nation, and about his Muslim relatives in Kenya.
Denunciations of Islam by a few Americans are a regrettable departure from America’s tradition of religious tolerance. We know that Muslims have a religious obligation to take offense at satirizations of the Prophet Muhammad, as would Christians if Jesus were ridiculed. When Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan allegedly called Judaism a "gutter religion" in 1984, he was widely denounced for his insensitivity.
Yet, we also must ask Muslims to recognize that the United States and other Western nations have a moral and legal commitment to defending, even encouraging, freedom of speech and religion. It has also become a part of our common ethos to condemn bigotry of any kind, be it religious, racist, or ethnic. And that includes xenophobia, Islamophobia, Arabophobia, and Judeophobia.
Several Muslim commentators have noted how often American media associate Muslims with terrorism. Hezbollah’s and Hamas’ resistance against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, for example, is being routinely denounced as terrorism but not so the destruction of Palestinian lives and livelihoods by Israelis.
We Americans must assure the Muslim nations victimized by Western aggression and colonialism that we condemn the suffering inflicted upon them. We do not apologize, however, for having come to the aid of the Jewish people in their effort to create for themselves a viable homeland in the state of Israel.
Nevertheless, the Israelis’ conquest of the Palestinians’ homeland was--in the words of Israeli journalist Amos Elon--“a brutal twist of fate, unexpected, undesired, unconsidered by the early pioneers.” Both Israelis and Americans therefore owe the Palestinian people national self-determination and sovereignty in a viable state of their own.
As foremost political friends and financial supporters of Israel, we Americans have so far failed to make our powerful influence felt in prevailing upon the Israeli government to end its harsh occupation over their Palestinian neighbors and make peace with them, voluntarily and fairly.
We also need to promise all nations of the Middle East that our armed forces in the region serve only the purpose of eliminating the al-Qaeda conspiracy that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. We want to contribute to the pacification of Afghanistan but withdraw our forces as soon as our mission is accomplished. It would be hypocritical for us to celebrate our own freedom from foreign domination and impose indefinite military control upon others.
We do regret that after al-Qaeda’s attack on the U.S. Islamophobia in the West may have increased temporarily. Several Islamic and human rights groups have documented increasing incidents of persecution against Muslims, while anti-Western Islamists have gained members, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. The Islamist argument, however, that the West has launched a new crusade against Islam has no basis in fact.
It was unilateral attacks against western targets by radical Islamists that led to the recent surge in alienation between Muslims and Christians. Yet, violent extremists have always been only a small minority among the world’s 1,200 million adherents to Islam.
President Obama can hardly go wrong in his speech in Egypt if he sticks to the plea he recently delivered in Turkey: “Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not--and will never be--at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject but also to strengthen opportunities for all people.”